


beware, take care

by csi_sanders1129



Category: The Hollow (2004)
Genre: Bisexuality, Halloween, Hidden Feelings, High School, Homophobic Character, M/M, Outed, Supernatural Elements, Swordfighting, injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-08
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:20:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27445534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/csi_sanders1129/pseuds/csi_sanders1129
Summary: In which Ian and Brody have to face another Halloween with the Headless Horseman running loose.
Relationships: Ian Cranston/Brody Vanderveer
Kudos: 1





	beware, take care

**Author's Note:**

> So this has been in progress for literal years and @cynic_fic sort of challenged me to finish it by Halloween, which I technically did. Mostly. 
> 
> This movie came out in 2004 and starred Kevin Zegers, Kaley Cuoco and Nick Carter and I don't think I've met anyone who's known it existed. Honestly, it's not very good, either. As far as I know this is the only fic in existence for this movie but this idea is finally out of my head and my in progress folder, so there's that. Title is from the Disney version of the Headless Horseman song. Characters aren't mine, except the ones that are. Comments and kudos would be awesome (if profoundly unlikely). Enjoy!

11:59.

Almost there, Ian thinks, his eyes once again drawn to the illuminated display of the alarm clock perched on his bedside table. It's almost midnight, almost Halloween.

"Sport?" His father knocks on his half-open bedroom door, and Ian waves him in, "Ian, I know it's rough, but you need to get some rest. You still have school tomorrow."

"I know, Dad," he answers, wonders how he's going to get through the next 24 hours without having a nervous breakdown. "Night."

"Night," he says, and takes his leave, pulling the door closed behind him.

Ian flops back onto his bed and goes back to staring at the clock. 12:01.

Not for the first time since last Halloween, he wishes he could have talked his family into getting out of town for the holiday. As it stands, he's excused himself from anything even remotely Halloween related this year. No storytelling, no hayride, no movies, they're not even giving out candy this year. There is one bright side, though, in that early college admissions had drawn Karen out to California at the start of the school year, more than far enough away from Sleepy Hollow to keep safe from the potential threat of the horseman. They'd broken up, too, an amicable split, a few weeks before she'd left. He's still got Brody to worry about, though. The other boy is arguably his best friend now, in stark contrast to this time last year, when the only interactions they had amounted to stolen homework and bitter threats. Brody has made it abundantly clear that he's going to be right in the middle of whatever today brings, no matter how many times Ian's told him he should stay away for his own safety.

He knows sleep is a lost cause tonight. No way can he let his guard down enough for that knowing what might be out there, coming for him or his father. He stares at the slowly changing display. 12:04 now.

With a resigned sigh, he grabs up a half-finished comic book compendium from his nightstand and starts reading. That can keep him busy for hours, and that's definitely the sort of distraction he needs right now.

Ian makes it to three in the morning before his eyes start getting heavy and the words grow blurry and confusing on the page in front of him, but every time they start to close, he gets flashes of an angry, evil horseman and that flaming pumpkin head. Flashes of Claus and of the severed heads of his classmates. He drifts off for a solid few minutes at one point, only to jolt back to consciousness when his brain supplies disturbingly gruesome nightmare images of his parents, of Brody, of Karen, all slain by the horseman's blade, and of himself, unable to stop it before the demon takes him, too.

3:12, the clock tells him, and Ian sits up again, drags his hands over his face in the sort of world-weary gesture that shouldn't be coming from an 18 year old. "Oh, this is gonna be a long, long day."

His phone vibrates with a received message and he's quick to grab it up because he can't think of any good reason for anyone to be texting him so late, especially not tonight. His mind wanders to terrible, terrible places, his imagination running wild with ideas of what the horseman might have done in lieu of coming after him, when he flips it open and sees it's Brody's name flashing on the display. There's a slew of missed messages, he realizes, but the latest few (sent in Brody's typical rapid fire sequencing) read, ' _Dude,'_ and _'let me in,'_ and _'cold out here_.'

Ian frowns in confusion at the device in his hand because what the hell is Brody doing here? Quietly, he slips out of his room, down the hall, down the stairs. He draws the front door open slowly, not because he's afraid of what might be on the other side, but because it creaks and he doesn't want his parents flipping out.

Indeed, the only thing on the other side is Brody, who jumps to his feet when he hears the door, up from where he'd been sitting on the front steps, grabbing his backpack as he moves to meet Ian. "Man, I've been texting you for two hours," Brody snaps at him, as Ian steps aside to let the perpetually grumpy football player into the relative warmth of the house. He's dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, so it's no wonder he was cold, since the temperature is hovering somewhere around forty degrees.

"Shh," Ian warns him. Brody's hand is cool to the touch when he reaches out to draw the other boy toward the stairs. A slow and stealthy trip to the other end of the hallway ends with Ian carefully shutting his bedroom door again, and with that, he turns to question his friend. "How long have you been out there?"

"Midnight," Brody admits, though he won't meet Ian's eyes when he says it.

"Midnight?" Ian stares at him, because even the fact that they're best friends these days does not explain such a reckless decision. "Any particular reason why?"

"You know why," Brody counters, perching on the edge of Ian's bed.

Ian doesn't like this. "I know why I've been up, why I'm not sleeping," he says, "but what were you thinking? I know you had to cut through the hollow to get here, cross the bridge. You shouldn't be risking yourself again. This is my responsibility."

"Bullshit," Brody counters, up off the bed again, closing in on Ian like all those times when they weren't friends, all challenge and fight. He's close enough that Ian can feel the cold still leeching off of him. "You didn't ask for this – it shouldn't be your responsibility, but you're stuck with it anyway. I've told you a million times that there's not a chance in hell I'm gonna let you do this on your own. And I know I'm not a Crane or a Cranston or whatever, but that's not gonna stop me from making sure nothing happens to you."

Ian doesn't really know what to say to that. It's not like he _wants_ to do this alone, but he also doesn't want to put anyone else at risk. Still, the idea of having someone at his back, fighting this fight with him gives him some hope that maybe they can actually pull this off, that this will be the last Halloween the horseman takes from him. "Fine," he relents, and he feels the overbearing weight on his shoulders lighten just a little bit.

"Good," Brody sighs with palpable relief, as he edges his way back out of Ian's personal space. "Good. I, uh, I got a sword for you, by the way. My grandfather collects that kind of stuff. I swapped it out with a fake one I got off eBay over the summer. I stashed it outside, under the porch steps. After last year..."

He doesn't need to explain. Ian gets it.

They'd all gone home last Halloween feeling victorious and relieved, if exhausted and sore. The headless horseman was gone, or so they'd thought. But the morning had dawned, and with it came the discovery of Claus' body in the hollow. He'd been blamed for all of it, despite what Ian and Brody and Karen had all tried to say on the matter – the heads had been found by the grave that multiple people had heard the old man rambling on about, in the graveyard he'd always been bizarrely protective of, his ancestors sword had been found near his body and it appeared as though someone had attacked Claus in self-defense. All in all, it was more than enough for the police. They had someone (notably not a supernatural being) to blame for the brutal murders of four teenagers and the local Sheriff, and that was that. The 'Headless Horseman' murder case had been promptly closed.

"Thanks," he says, grateful that he doesn't have to go digging through graves to find one. "You can get some sleep if you want. There's no reason both of us need to be awake."

"I'm good," Brody protests. "You're the one that should be sleeping."

"Tried. Can't," Ian shrugs away the lingering traces of those nightmare images and pulls out the old, worn, heavy text from its hiding spot in the bottom drawer of his desk. He's read it through numerous times since last year. Brody has, too. Nonetheless, he flips it open again and Brody moves to stand behind him, leaned in close, reading over his shoulder. It should be annoying, but Ian finds his presence at his back calming.

"You think we missed something?"

"I don't know," he answers, though he's pretty sure they've scavenged all the information they can out of Washington Irving's book and honestly there hadn't been that much to find. Nonetheless, they spend the rest of the night paging through the most pertinent sections of it just in case.

At some point, Brody stops hovering behind him and ends up sitting on the floor at Ian's side, flipping through his homework while Ian continues with Irving's book. Eventually, Brody starts to lean against him, his head resting on Ian's knee. He keeps drifting off like that, though every time Ian's shifting wakes him he swears he was never asleep. Ian does his best to stay as still as possible to avoid disturbing the other boy.

By the time Ian's alarm goes off at 6:15, his back is stiff, his eyes burn with the lack of sleep, and they're no closer to any new information than they'd been three hours ago, but it's late enough that he can risk leaving his room without drawing his parents attention. Startled by the shrill sound of the alarm, Brody jerks awake from another round of not-sleeping and Ian doesn't manage to hold back his amusement. Ian fights back a yawn, stretches out in the chair now that Brody's not leaning on him. "You can go take a shower, if you want," he says, still laughing, and the other boy is quick to take him up on the offer.

"Thanks, man," Brody says, clapping him on the shoulder as he quietly slips out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. He returns in just a few minutes, years of locker room showers no doubt having streamlined the process. He's back in his jeans, with his shirt tossed over his shoulder, still dragging a towel through his damp hair. It's a fairly distracting sight, but Brody remains oblivious to the fact that Ian was looking, adding on an, "All yours," when he finally pulls the towel away.

A little bit flustered, Ian ducks out of the room and passes by his dad as he groggily zombies his way down the stairs to find some much needed coffee. But his own shower is cut short when his father yells for him, a sharp, "Ian!" that tells him that something must really be wrong. He's quick to shut off the water, wrap himself in a towel and jog down the steps, a panicked, "what's wrong?" spilling from his lips.

Brody appears, too, still shirtless as he comes rushing out of Ian's room in a panic of his own, no doubt similarly alarmed by the shouting.

His father, at the base of the stairs, momentarily forgets whatever he'd been yelling about, as the sight of both his son and his best football player barreling down the stairs in differing states of not dressed begins to register. "Vanderveer? What the hell are you doing here?"

"He's been here all night," Ian answers, though as the words pour out of his mouth, he realizes it might not have been the best explanation he could have come up with.

His dad's eyes blow wide in a way that might have been comical were it not for the present situation, a confused, stunned expression on his face as he glances between the two teenagers. Though Brody has spent a lot of time here since last year's Halloween incident, it is a little suspicious for him to be here so early and half-dressed at that.

"On horseman watch," Brody helpfully clarifies, which seems to take the edge off of his father's confusion and the traces of building anger at Ian's flagrant rule breaking, and it snaps him back to reality and whatever sent him calling for Ian in the first place. "What's going on, Coach?"

"The news," he answers, waving to the television. On screen, the police are poking around in the cemetery, putting up crime scene tape and walking around with cameras and evidence bags. "Five bodies were found this morning, missing their heads. A group of college kids who thought it'd be cool to mess around in the graveyard on the anniversary of the murders. They're calling it a copycat attack."

They all know better, though, and Ian is more relieved than ever that he didn't even think about trying to send Brody home – he'd have had to cross through there again, and he might not have been so lucky a second time.

But it's disheartening to know for sure that the horseman is back, that they are going to have to fight the monster all over again. Already the horseman has matched its headless body count from last year.

Ian heaves a tired sigh and retreats back toward the stairs, intent on washing the soap out of his hair before he deals with anything else this crazy day can throw at him. It's barely a quarter of the way over with and it's already getting to him.

The clock reads 6:37 when he walks into his room a few minutes later, trading his soaked towel for warm clothes. He throws his homework into his backpack, along with the heavy book by Washington Irving, just in case, and notes that Brody must have come back up long enough to grab his stuff.

Downstairs, he finds Brody waiting with a travel mug of coffee for him, "The principal was on while you were upstairs."

"School closed?"

"Nah," Brody tells him, "Opposite. The school is dead-set on holding classes today, trying to maintain some kind of normalcy despite the new murders, they said," he scoffs. "More like if the students are all in class, then they won't be wandering around the hollow, potential prey for a 'copycat killer' lurking in the woods."

"Can't argue with that part," Ian counters, "If you didn't know what was going on, you'd probably be out there." But Brody frowns, and it takes Ian a moment to realize that reminding Brody that last year's midnight jaunt through the graveyard had gotten Scott and Amber killed might not have been the nicest response he could have offered to the guy who just stayed up with him all night in an effort to prevent the same thing from happening again. "Sorry."

Brody shrugs off his apology. "We should get going," he says, nodding toward the door.

By the time they pull into the school parking lot a little after 7:00, Ian is sort of regretting this decision.

"We could skip," Brody tries to persuade him, "As far as we know, the horseman can't come out to play during the day – and if he can't do anything until sundown, neither can we. It'd be a good time to get some actual rest."

"Tempting, but no," Ian says, killing the engine of his car. "My dad'll freak out if we don't show."

So, they'll go, they decide. They head in, loitering by their lockers until the last bell rings, when they have to split for their separate homerooms.

And, ugh, homeroom is a buzz of chattering classmates, as per usual, but today it's all hushed, worried whispers and not-so-hushed insane theories. "We live in Sleepy Hollow," someone says, "maybe it really _is_ the headless horseman." Another student counters, "or maybe that crazy graveyard guy wasn't really dead."

Ian ignores them, and is almost grateful when the teacher finally strolls in and shuts them all up, marking off attendance with a little more dedication than is typical. Ian assumes the school really is trying to make sure no one is out there wandering around.

First period starts at 7:40, and Ian shuffles off to suffer through fifty minutes of AP Calculus with no sleep and the daunting threat of a supernatural being after his head. It goes about as well as expected, in that Ian retains roughly zero percent of the information presented. From there, it's off to AP English Lit, where he'll have to overanalyze passages from _Paradise Lost_ for nearly another hour. He passes Brody on the way, only managing to trade exhausted looks before they head into separate rooms.

Ian meets up with Brody again for a particularly grueling double period of AP World History. They spend almost two hours leaned heavily against each other's shoulders, subtly working to keep each other awake while the teacher drones on and on and on about the various notable battles of the Persian Wars.

It's starting to storm when they are dismissed from that class, which is maybe not a bad thing, since it will hopefully dissuade any potential victims from venturing into the hollow. Brody and Ian head for the cafeteria, where they sit side by side, surrounded by the other football players, all of whom are endlessly gossiping about the murders. For their part, Brody and Ian spend the time absently picking at cafeteria food and stifling yawns in relative silence.

"Think I'm jealous of your free period," Brody says, at 12:05 when they take their leave of the crowded cafeteria. "Enjoy your nap. I'll be running drills with your dad."

"I'll come with you," Ian decides, because if he falls asleep in the library or out in his car, he's sure the nightmares will be back. They only have one class after the free period, AP Biology, and then they'll be done for the day, thanks to their shortened senior year schedules.

So Ian follows him to the gym, perches high on the bleachers with Irving's book and skims through for something like the thousandth time.

"Ian!"

Ian looks up, surprised to find his father approaching him. "Yeah, Dad?"

"I talked with your mother," he says, glancing back down at the gym floor as the football team emerges from the locker rooms, now clad in their practice gear. He shouts instructions at Brody and leaves them be, moving to sit beside his son. "We're leaving town as soon as school gets out."

"What? No, we can't!"

"We can and we will," he answers, in his this-is-not-up-for-debate tone of voice, which Ian is more than familiar with (and also more than familiar with disobeying). "It's not our responsibility to stop this again, Ian. Neither one of us is risking getting killed by that undead maniac."

"It _is_ our responsibility. You made it our responsibility when you refused to leave town like I suggested. It's only happening because we're here, you know that. We can't just up and leave while the horseman is still on the loose. Everyone in town would be in danger. Because of _us_ ," he stresses, gesturing to the book that claims as much.

But his father has counter arguments. "There are more than enough cops around to deal with that monster this year. There's no hayride, there's a curfew in place, and so long as the horseman can't get across the bridge, there's no way out this time. It's safe enough – anyone who goes poking around in there is asking for trouble, as far as I'm concerned. We are leaving."

" _I'm_ not leaving."

"You are."

"I'm not, not now."

"Ian," his father snaps at him, trying to keep his voice down, despite his irritation. "You'll be at the house and ready to go by 4:00, no excuses, no delays. Is that clear?"

"No," he answers. He can feel Brody's eyes on him, though he doubts the other boy has heard what's been said, when he gets to his feet and retreats from the gym.

Ian makes it as far as the hall outside of the locker rooms before he realizes that Brody's chasing after him. "What was all that about?"

"Nothing. It doesn't matter," Ian says, pacing the width of the hallway as the combination of rage and exhaustion and terror starts to get to him, "Dad wants to run away, but I'm not going anywhere. I'm not running from this."

Brody's hands land on his shoulders, a calming weight that stills his back and forth progress. "Hey, I know you're not. You won't," the other boy assures him. "Look. We'll get out of here, though. Just give me two minutes to go change and grab my stuff?"

Ian nods, and Brody rushes back toward the locker rooms.

"Don't make this difficult, son," comes his father's voice. It seems that Brody wasn't the only one to follow him.

Ian turns to face the man with an exasperated sigh because he really isn't trying to do that at all. "Don't you get it, Dad? We can't just leave. We have to do this, I have to do this. You think I _want_ to go after that thing again? It nearly killed us last year, but if the horseman is back, then we're responsible. We have to stop it."

But Ian isn't getting through.

"Ian, all I care about is getting you and your mother out of this town," his father pleads, sounding sick and tired of fighting about this. "The police will handle it."

"Really?" Ian objects, "Will they? Are revolutionary war era weapons standard issue for the cops now, Dad? They're gonna go down into the hollow and if they're unfortunate enough to find the horseman, they'll shoot it full of holes and they won't hurt it at all and then it'll kill them and the monster will be that much more powerful. It has to be us. It has to be."

It's then that Brody reappears, once again in jeans and a t-shirt, his backpack in hand. He settles at Ian's side, where he always is these days, and tries to defuse this situation before it gets out of control, with a leading hand on Ian's side, a quiet, "Let's just go, okay?"

"If you leave, Vanderveer, you are off the team," the coach threatens, likely feeling confident that the words will keep Brody here, at least, which might possibly keep Ian here, too.

"I don't care," Brody argues without a second of hesitation, "This is more important."

It brings Ian up short, though. "No. You have a football scholarship – you can't get kicked off the team two months into your senior year," he protests, because he doesn't want Brody messing up his future for this when he doesn't even have to be part of it at all.

"You're not doing this alone," Brody insists again. "No way. So, forget it, okay? Let's just get outta here."

Ian agrees, and turns to go no matter his father's opinion on the matter, but he doesn't get far.

"He's in love with you, you know," his father snaps at him, using the words like a weapon that's sure to do damage, waving a dismissive hand at Brody who has frozen mid-step. "Some of the others on the team told me he's queer, thought I should know. I didn't care, not as long as he was playing well. But I noticed how he was with you, especially after Karen left. That's the reason he's doing this, following you around like some lovesick puppy, just so you know."

Ian doesn't know what to make of this announcement. Doesn't know if he should even believe it at first – but Brody's face tells him all he needs to know. The other boy looks like he's just run into a whole horde of horsemen and he won't meet Ian's gaze. It is true, then, Brody does have feelings for him.

But that brings him to why the hell his dad thought this would stop him. Did he think it would make Ian turn his back on his best friend? Or did he think it would make Ian feel guilty about having Brody around for today, a single ally in the face of a literal demon? Brody has had plenty of chances to bail on this friendship over the last year, he's had plenty of chances to bail on today's insanity and get the hell out of town. He's fully informed of what today entails. Brody's always there and Ian is going to trust that Brody isn't doing all of this just because he has feelings for him. So why play this card?

If anything, Ian would have called it a risk. He's reasonably certain his father has thought that he was gay on more than one occasion over the years. Hell, Ian thinks now, he probably thought something along those lines just this morning, when Ian had claimed Brody had spent the night. And, well, he wouldn't have been wrong. There's been a time or two (or more, recently) when Ian's considered that he might not be totally straight, either.

Apparently he's been mulling this surprising information over in silence for a little too long, though, because Brody huffs out a disgruntled, "Whatever, I'm outta here," and passes by Ian with a hard shoulder check, and it only takes a few seconds for him to bolt out of sight.

"Brody, wait," he calls, intent on chasing down the other boy and working this out before he does anything else. But Ian's forward progress is halted when a hand curls tight around his arm. "Dad, let me go."

But his dad does not relent. "If you're not home and ready to go by 4:00, I will personally out him to the coach at State, and after that I'll make sure every other school he's even thought about applying to knows about him, too."

Stunned by the cruel lengths his father is willing to go to, Ian realizes that maybe outing Brody was an effective weapon after all.

Ian does not need another battle to fight today, but one has found him nonetheless. At least there aren't any swords in this one. He squares his shoulders and throws down a weapon of his own, even if it's not one he was exactly prepared to use. "You gonna out me, too, Dad?"

He watches his father's face contort in anger as the words register. The grip on his arm tightens. "You're no-"

"Screw you," he snaps, finally twisting free of the grip his father has on his arm.

He storms off, even though his father is shouting after him. He doesn't listen, doesn't care what his father has to say right now. He has more important things to worry about. He needs to find Brody.

And he looks everywhere. Brody's locker, outside their next class; he checks his car to see if maybe Brody went to wait for him there as the storm picks up strength. But he's nowhere. He pulls out his cell, calls Brody and gets two rings before he's sent to voicemail – ignored, then. "Damn it, where'd you go? My dad is an asshole and I'm sorry. If you get this in the next few minutes, meet me at my car and we'll get out of here, okay? There are a few things we should probably talk about."

He waits in the car, watching the rain come down harder and harder as the minutes tick by with no sign of Brody. 12:30 and 12:45 both come and go. His phone remains silent, despite the barrage of texts he sends. Finally, he puts the car in drive and pulls out of the school lot.

The drive to Brody's house is a familiar one, by now, but he's not there, either. Or, if he is, he's holed up inside. Ian idles in the empty driveway, hoping he'll turn up here if nowhere else and with nothing else to do, he pulls out his phone again and calls the one person who might be able to shed some light on the situation.

Karen answers on the third ring, with a quick, " _I'm on my way to class, so talk fast._ "

He doesn't worry about telling her, he's sure she already knows. Brody's always told her everything. Ian's told her everything, too. "So... Brody's into guys. Or into me, at least, I don't know."

There's a long pause, and then, " _He finally told you? Sure picked a weird time to do it._ "

"Not... exactly, no," he sighs. "My dad did, in one of the many moves he made today that proved he could be even more of a jackass than I thought possible. Brody stormed off before I could say anything. Now I can't find him."

" _If you're going straight to voicemail and he's not answering texts, he probably went to his grandfather's place. That's what he usually does when he needs to chill and the cell signal there is awful. Give him some time and he'll answer,_ " Karen suggests. She doesn't tell him where Brody's grandfather lives and he can take that for the hint that it is. " _But, wow,_ " she continues, " _that's harsh, even for your Dad._ "

"Yeah, I know. How long have you known?"

" _He told me for sure before I left town, but I'd had suspicions for a while before that. My question is, what are you going to do with this information now that you've got it? Are_ you _going to tell him about your own potentially varied interests?_ "

Ian doesn't quite know how to respond to that just yet. "Assuming we make it through tonight without dying, we can figure it out."

Karen wishes him luck and tells him she has to go, her class is about to start, but promises she'll check in with Brody as soon as it's over, and the call ends.

With that, he's left to wait. It's all he can do.

Unfortunately, waiting leaves him with entirely too much time to dwell on what he's learned.

Brody likes him.

He doesn't find the idea as surprising as he probably should.

And it's not like he's opposed to it, either. These last few weeks, months, Brody's been a solid focal point through the chaos and Ian finds that just having the other boy around – like he'd been last night, or in class earlier today, the two of them just sharing space – had kept him calm in a way nothing else had managed to.

Still, given his own sexuality is still something he's struggling to figure out, it would have been stupid to risk their carefully built friendship, especially considering that until his father's bombshell hit, he'd had no reason to think Brody was anything but straight.

That's not to say Ian hasn't thought about it. Brody's one of the most popular kids in school for a reason and it is not entirely due to his football skills. Ian certainly isn't blind.

So maybe he likes Brody, too?

If only the other boy would answer his phone or his texts so they could work this out. He doesn't know whether or not Brody still intends to join him in the fight against the horseman tonight – but either way, Ian doesn't like the idea of Brody being alone right now. Not with this unresolved and not with the horseman around.

He tries calling again, just in case Karen was wrong, but he's sent directly to voicemail. So, either he did go to his grandfather's or his phone is off entirely. Neither option does anything to ease Ian's building anxiety.

But there's nothing he can do if Brody doesn't want to talk to him right now. Given that he doesn't want to risk running into his dad at home, he opts to stay put in the driveway of the Vanderveer house until Brody comes around.

1:09 now, more than halfway through this nightmare of a day.

As time passes, the steady sound of rain on the roof of the Mustang and the distant rumblings of thunder lull him into something close to sleep. He doesn't want to. Doesn't want to risk missing Brody or falling back into the nightmare versions of how today could play out, but he finds it's a losing battle. He'll just close his eyes for a few minutes, take the edge off the exhaustion, he thinks.

He's jolted back to consciousness by the sound of his phone, which tells him it is 4:44 (well passed his father's deadline and well passed the few minutes he'd planned to rest), he has seven missed calls, eighteen text messages, three voicemails and that Karen is the one calling him at present.

"What's going on?" he asks, wondering what she could need to tell him so badly.

" _Brody just called me,_ " she says. " _He was at his grandfather's place, like I thought. He's got a second sword and he's going into the hollow right now. Ian, you've got to go after him, the idiot, he's not thinking clearly and-_ "

"Damn it," Ian curses, dropping the phone into the passenger seat, already fumbling the car into reverse to escape the driveway of the Vanderveer house, where he's been parked for the last several hours. As troubling as this development is, another realization follows: the sword Brody gave him, it's back at the house.

He speeds his way back home, stunned that he isn't pulled over (but then all of the law enforcement in the area is likely focusing on the hollow itself, so...) and he doesn't quite know what to expect when he gets there. He half expects to find his father pacing on the porch, madder than Ian's ever seen and ready to drag away from Sleepy Hollow, but instead, he finds the car already gone. His parents left without him.

This realization hits like a punch to the gut – that they left him here to deal with the horseman on his own. Honestly, not that surprising of a reaction from his father, but if he'd thought about this more than todays spur of the moment decisions, he would have expected his mother to be more supportive. Still, now is not the time to worry about them. Now he has to get the sword and get to Brody.

Which, with his parents not here demanding he leave with them, is at least easier to do than he thought. He hurries to get out of his car, barely remembers to put it in park, and scrambles over to the porch, groping blindly for the sword in the dirt beneath the steps. He comes up with the canvas bag that holds the sword in its sheath and takes off running.

4:53. The sun is setting. He doesn't have much time.

Maybe someone stopped Brody, he thinks, as the hollow finally comes into view.

But he sneaks by an unobservant county cop with disappointing ease – so much for the fleeting hope that Brody might not have made it in – and quickly moves through the now familiar path to Irving's overgrown grave.

"Oof!" he groans, as he trips over the headless bodies of two other law enforcement officers, one a federal agent, the other another county cop. That makes seven kills today and indeed seven heads are tangled amongst the bloody vines. The horseman is officially more powerful than last year, as if it weren't powerful enough already.

At first he thinks it's thunder, but at the last possible second, he realizes that it's the sound of approaching hoof beats he's hearing. It gives Ian just enough of a warning to start moving. He scrambles back to his feet, draws his sword, and runs, and runs, and runs. He narrowly avoids tripping over the broken branches and creeping vines that almost seem like they're trying to get in his way and the tombstones only add an additional obstacle to avoid, but the still falling rain is the worst, making the layer of wet leaves slick and slippery underfoot.

He hasn't been paying attention to where he's been going in his desperate rush to evade the horseman, but a flash of lightning breaking through the tree cover shows him that he's ended up near Claus' cabin. It's there that he finally does fall, one of his shoes sinks deep in the mud and throws him off balance, sending him down hard. He can hear the rapid fire hoof beats draw ever nearer.

"Ian!" comes the shouted call from out of nowhere. Suddenly Brody is rushing toward him from the darkness of the forest. "Look out!" Brody dives forward like the fool that he is and tackles Ian out of the path of the horseman's incoming sword. The horseman swings at him, instead, and Ian watches in horror as the blade sinks into Brody's side and his best friend falls.

"Brody!" he shouts, scrambling back to his feet again and rushing toward his fallen friend. Brody might have saved him from that swing, but the horseman is circling back already and they're nowhere near out of danger. "Brody," he says again, a hand covering Brody's on the bloody wound. "Man, that's really bleeding. Don't-"

"Get outta here!" Brody demands, trying desperately to shove him away.

But that is not an option, Ian thinks. Not only would it fail to stop the horseman's reign of terror, it would almost certainly mean Brody's death. And there's no way Ian's letting that happen when there's a way to prevent it.

"Yeah, not a chance," he says, grabbing for the sword he dropped when Brody tackled him. He sees the second one at Brody's side.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

"What does it look like?" Ian counters, ready to run again. "I'll draw the horseman off. You try to get somewhere safe," he says, and takes off before Brody can fight him on it.

And so it's back to the running, luring the horseman away from Brody with shouted taunts and luckily the horseman seems to follow.

Just as it did last year, the fight is going to end, one way or the other, near the bridge. He's figured that's where they went wrong, the blade didn't hit the horseman's heart, but whatever power the bridge has over the creature had gotten rid of it for the year - and if Ian can't kill it now, if he can survive this himself again, then maybe that will work, maybe he can buy them until next Halloween.

When he finally stops running, he spins around, expecting the horseman to be close behind, but he sees nothing. For a second, dread hits Ian hard with the thought that maybe the horseman went back for Brody, to increase its power with another kill. But as he turns again, searching for any sign of the evil being in the rain filled night, that damned flaming pumpkin comes flying at him. It knocks him down and the horseman takes that chance to dismount from its supernatural mount and move in closer.

Ian springs back to his feet, glad now for the rain that promptly extinguishes the bits of burning pumpkin, and raises his sword.

He blocks the first swing, and the second. Parries the third and strikes the fourth, but he can't get an opening, can't get at the horseman's black heart to kill the beast once and for all.

Ian holds his own for a few long moments, but eventually the horseman gains the upper hand. Ian finds himself pinned to the wet, cold ground, the horseman looming over him. He fights, of course, kicking and squirming and trying desperately to reach for his sword, though the horseman has disarmed him, tossed it away, just barely out of reach.

And this is it.

Ian is going to die.

Ian is going to die and Brody is going to die (because he's certainly in no shape to stop the horseman) and anyone else who wanders into the hollow is going to die and it's going to be his fault. This was his responsibility and he's failed and this is it.

The horseman seems to be reveling in its victory with the old sword pressed against Ian's neck, poised to deal the killing blow. He feels it pierce the skin there, slowly drawing blood.

Ian closes his eyes and waits, but the blow never comes.

The horseman shrieks, then, and Ian's eyes shoot open. There's a sword through the creature's chest, and Ian realizes that Brody's somehow made it here, and that he's driven his sword through its back, jumped on the horseman's back, pinning its arms to its sides. "Ian!" he shouts, "Ian, now! Do it now!"

And Ian doesn't waste any time. He grabs up the horseman's own sword and takes aim, driving the blade into the horseman's chest as Brody pushes the creature forward onto it. To be safe, Ian twists and turns the blade, trying for the heart if he hasn't yet hit it.

"Come on!" Ian shouts, when nothing seems to be happening. But the horseman isn't going quietly. The monster finally gets some leverage, then, and flings Brody from its back, sending the other boy some distance away from the fight. "No! No, no, no..." Ian lunges desperately toward his own sword, still just out of reach. He manages to curl his fingers around the blade, the sharp metal biting into his skin, but he barely notices the damage it does. He has it. Sword in hand, he swings back toward the creature, driving the blade in with as much force as he can muster before the horseman can manage an escape, or worse, a counter-attack. Ian forces the blade sharply to one side and now the evil creature lets out an ear-splitting shriek, clawing frantically at the handle of the blade, but it's too late.

There's smoke coming from the wound now, smoke and fire, and Ian scrambles out from under the creature as it screeches and writhes and seems to implode upon itself, burning from the inside out until nothing is left but ashes, even the swords are gone. It's almost like what happened last year, except it's not – this time, Ian is sure, it really is dead.

They did it, the two of them, together.

But, now what?

Ian has no idea how to get them out of this mess. None of their plans had accounted for _after_ , they had been so focused on the awesome task of actually killing the horseman that they hadn't given a thought as to what to do if they actually succeeded. The investigation, the new victims complicate things – Ian has to make sure they can't be tied back to this. And Brody's wound is even more problematic in that sense.

Relieved and exhausted, Ian rushes to Brody's side, where the other boy lays at the base of a tree nearby. He hasn't moved. He can tell the other boy must have hit his head when the horseman threw him off. "Brody," he pleads with his best friend, his non-injured hand pressed hard against the bloody gauge in his side to try to stop the bleeding, the other shaking him lightly, trying to draw him back to consciousness. "Brody, please, you need to wake up."

Brody doesn't respond.

"Damn it," he mutters to himself. He reaches for his cell phone, but he realizes now that he must have left it in his car after Karen called him, because it's nowhere on him. Brody's is in the back pocket of his jeans, but the screen is cracked and the thing won't turn on, no doubt broken in one of their scuffles with the horseman. What is he supposed to do?

Just as the panic starts to overwhelm him, the beam of a flashlight settles on him, and Ian wheels around to face a figure hidden behind the bright light. "Hands up!" comes the shouted order from someone who is clearly in law enforcement.

Ian doesn't comply, doesn't want to risk taking his hand off of the wound. "I can't, my friend, he's-"

"Now!"

He can see the metallic glint of a gun as the figure comes closer, and so he lifts his hands in surrender. The bright red blood shines in the light and the officer moves the beam down to Brody's unconscious form. There's more blood than Ian realized, he thinks, when the light hits him. "He's hurt. Please."

"Go ahead," the man concedes, and Ian's hands immediately return to the wound.

"This isn't what you think," Ian starts to defend, because he is well aware that this looks bad. The two of them out here when no one is supposed to be, one of them with a bloody stab wound, in the middle of an investigation into a supposed serial killer with a preference for that sort of thing. "We were trying to stop-"

"I saw," the officer admits, lowering both his weapon and his light, and now that he's close enough, Ian can make out the shell-shocked look on the man's face. "I don't know what I saw, and I don't think I want to know, but I saw it."

Ian doesn't try to explain further. He has more important things to worry about. "I need to get him out of here."

"Right," the officer says. He takes a deep breath, steeling himself, and raises his radio, "Dispatch, this is Richardson. I've got a situation out here. A couple of kids were attacked by our suspect; one of them has been stabbed. Code 57, en route to hospital – it'll be faster to take them myself than wait for a bus," he explains, receives an acknowledgement from the dispatcher a few seconds later. "We need a decent story by the time we get there."

Ian understands. He doesn't know how he would begin to describe tonight's insanity to anyone who hadn't been there to see it. "Got it."

"Let's get him up, my car's just over the bridge."

"Thanks," Ian says, relieved. There's no way he could have moved Brody on his own. Somehow they manage the task, with Brody slumped between them, half-dragging him over the bridge and along the dirt road that runs through this part of the hollow. They stay within the tree-line, as out of sight as possible, and eventually, they come upon the car. They settle Brody in the backseat, and the dim light from the overhead bulb paints a grisly picture. There's so much blood and Brody's gone an alarming shade of pale.

"Lights and sirens should get us there plenty quick," Officer Richardson assures him, as Ian climbs into the backseat with Brody. "Now. Why the hell were you in there?"

"We were the only ones who knew what it really was, and-"

"No, no. I don't care why you were actually in there. I need a reason you two were in there that I can feasibly write in a report without getting myself sent for a psych eval."

Ian probably should have figured that. "Uh," he thinks, still holding pressure on the steadily bleeding stab wound in Brody's side, "I… I got in a fight with my dad," he says, which isn't entirely a lie. "And I stormed off. I wasn't thinking and I went through the hollow and Brody must have realized. He followed after me, to make sure I was okay. The horseman jumped us when we got close to the bridge." Ian's own injuries provide him with more of the tale. "He went after me, first, nicked my neck. I grabbed the sword to hold him off and then Brody showed up and pulled him off of me, got stabbed for his trouble. You showed up just a second later and he ran off. You saved us."

"Not a bad story," the officer replies, nodding in approval of this tall tale.

The remainder of the ride passes quickly, the two of them fleshing out the story as much as possible, but soon enough they're arriving at the hospital. As soon as they pull up to the emergency entrance, a couple of nurses wrangle Brody's unconscious form away from him and it's then, somehow, that Ian realizes that whatever feelings he might have for Brody might be deeper than he thought. The bright lights of the ambulance bay reveals the sheer amount of blood Brody's lost on the way here, and Ian feels sick at the sight of it. He can't stand the idea that he might lose Brody.

After a moment, someone else ushers him out of the car, and Ian goes, numbly, as they take him through triage. They offer him a shower and a set of warm, dry, hospital issue sweats to replace his dirty, rain-soaked, blood-soaked clothing and then they stitch up his hand, throw a bandage on the wound on his neck. They give him some pain relievers and discharge him with orders to go home and get some rest, but there's no way that's happening.

Instead, he asks about Brody. They point him to the waiting room in answer, and Ian does follow this instruction. He claims a seat and settles in to wait. It feels like it should be well past midnight by now, that this hellish day should be over and done with, but it's only 7:33 – it hasn't even been three hours since the sun went down.

A little over an hour later, Officer Richardson shows up again. He's here to take Ian's statement, which mostly entails the two of them sitting in a conference room off the waiting room and rehashing their carefully crafted tale into a narrative that's cohesive enough to put on paper but murky enough that it doesn't sound rehearsed. He revels in the distraction of the task and when draft three passes Officer Richardson's inspection, Ian signs his name and the officer takes his leave.

But, with that done, Ian finds himself pacing anxiously across the waiting room, an unending back and forth that, if Ian were at all aware of the smattering of other people currently sharing the room with him, might be kind of annoying. It's not his fault, though – they won't tell him anything about how Brody's doing, if he's out of surgery, if he's awake, if he can see him. Hell, he doesn't even know if Brody's still _alive_. He feels something lurch in his chest at the thought – surely they would have told him that much, right? Right?

An older man comes in, a little while later, as the clock displays 10:35. He disrupts Ian's route as he rushes to the desk. A few quick, exchanged words and a gesture in his direction and the old man is approaching him. "You must be Ian," he says, offering a hand. "Brody's told me all about you. I'm his grandfather, Howard."

Ian shakes the man's hand in greeting, but he doesn't know what to say. He flounders for a moment before he manages, "Is… is he okay? Have you heard?"

Howard settles a hand on his shoulder, leads him over to a couple of open seats, "He lost a lot of blood, they said, but he's in surgery now. Do you know what happened?"

He does, but it's not a story he can tell the old man. At least, not the real one. Instead, he tells the tall tale that everyone else is going to hear. Howard listens intently, asks a few questions, but seems to accept the story without too much trouble.

"Can I ask… Brody told me about what happened today, that your father outed him to you. Is that what you were arguing about?"

Ian's surprised by the question, he didn't think Brody would tell anyone (except maybe Karen) about that. A part of him is glad Brody had someone to talk to about it, if he wasn't going to talk to Ian. "Not entirely," Ian decides, "After he outed Brody, I sort of outed myself to my dad, too, and he didn't take it well. Not exactly surprising."

Before the man can ask any further questions, someone else enters the waiting area. He turns to find his mother approaching, with a relieved, "Ian!" She looks upset and Ian wonders what's going on – maybe she didn't write him off, after all?

"Mom?"

She pulls him into a crushing hug as soon as she's close enough, but it only lasts for a second before she notices his injuries. "Oh, honey, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he insists. "Just a few stitches and some bandages, is all. Brody's here – he's in surgery. This is his grandfather, Howard," he explains, motioning to the old man beside him. His mother introduces herself, too, but pulls Ian aside a moment later for a more private conversation.

"The horseman?" his mother asks, "You two stopped it?"

He nods, "yes, it's gone now. What are you doing here, though? I thought… you and Dad…?"

Anger flashes on her face then, but he's sure it's not directed at him. "Your father…" she starts, exasperated. "He told me you were leaving town with Brody, that you'd meet us somewhere. When you didn't show, and when you didn't answer your phone, I questioned him and he told me what happened at school today," she explains. "I went home, found your car, and figured you'd gone into the hollow. Then I hear a report on the radio about two teens attacked and transported to the hospital and I just knew it had to be you two."

"He told you everything?"

She looks alarmed by the possibility that he left something important out. "Is there more than you and Brody both being gay? Because that's all I know about."

Ian doesn't know that either of them are gay, really, maybe bi, but that's not a discussion he needs to have right now. "No, no, that's it," he says, manages something that's almost a laugh before he forces out the question he needs to ask. "Um. I know dad isn't, but are you… okay with that?"

She pulls him into another hug in answer, "Of course. You're my son. I love you no matter who you love."

He didn't realize quite how much he needed to hear that until she said it. He's glad she's still on his side, that they didn't both abandon him like he'd thought they had when he'd found the house empty. "Thanks," he says, sure that they'll be talking about this more later. For now, though, he gives her a brief rundown of what actually happened in the hollow, talking in hushed whispers well out of earshot of anyone else, and relays the one potential flaw in his fictional story. It hinges on his father corroborating Ian's claims of an argument that didn't really happen. She assures him that she'll make sure he backs up the story or else. Ian does not ask what 'or else' might entail but after the stunt the man pulled tonight, Ian would honestly not be surprised if it involved threats of divorce.

Much to his relief, she doesn't ask if he wants to go home. She knows he's not going anywhere until he knows Brody's okay. Still, before she leaves, she adds, "If you need me for anything at all – food, clothes, support, a ride – call and let me know."

He returns to his seat beside Brody's grandfather, but before they can talk about anything else, a doctor appears from the depths of the hospital beyond the waiting room with an update. She tells them that Brody's out of surgery and settled in a room for the night. Barring any complications from either the wound or the moderate concussion, he'll likely be released late tomorrow.

"I'd like to see my grandson, please," Howard asks, and within moments the old man is escorted out of the waiting room.

Yet again, Ian is left to wait alone. He doesn't resume is pacing route this time (which the other occupants of the waiting room probably appreciate) but sits and watches the clock, instead, as 11:21 becomes 11:37 and 11:43.

Finally, Brody's grandfather reappears, a relieved smile on his face. "He's doing fine," the old man tells him. "He wants to see you. The nurses didn't want him having any more visitors tonight, but I talked them into letting you have a few minutes."

"Thanks," Ian says. He doesn't know that he'd be able to leave without knowing for sure, without seeing Brody for himself.

"When you're done, I'll give you a ride home, if you'd like."

Ian nods, "That would be great, thanks."

Now that he finally is allowed to see Brody, though, Ian doesn't know quite how to react. He lingers in the hallway outside of the room they've admitted Brody to. He knows the other boy has already talked with Officer Richardson and been filled in on the cover story, and Brody will undoubtedly have questions about that. He knows he's already spoken with his grandfather, who'd assured Ian that Brody was eager to see him.

But now what?

Now, he has to face reality.

The horseman is no more. Life can go back to normal.

He can feel the swirling of anxiety build in his chest. Will Brody still want to be friends with him now that it's done, now that Brody's been stabbed and nearly killed for his trouble? How does Ian explain the awkward mess of his feelings at the moment – explain his father's threats and his own admissions?

Will Brody believe him if he does admit to whatever stirrings of feelings he has or will he think Ian's only pretending to reciprocate out of guilt or because he feels like he has to after Brody nearly died to save him?

There are too many questions and no answers on this side of the door, and this shouldn't be scarier than facing the horseman, but in a way it is.

He doesn't have long. He takes a deep, steadying breath and knocks, three quiet taps on the door, half-open, and peers cautiously inside.

"Get in here, already," Brody demands, so Ian does.

He slips in silently, stops at the foot of the hospital bed and looks the other boy over. Brody looks exhausted, which is to be expected, and still quite pale. He's got a mess of monitors and IV's hooked up. Ian can't see whatever bandages cover the horseman's stab wound, but he knows they're there. But just seeing the other boy alive and breathing and in one relatively unscathed piece cements the fact that he definitely feels something for Brody that's not just friendship.

Somehow, it's Brody who asks, "Are you okay?"

It's the most ridiculous thing Ian's ever heard. Brody's the one who's just been stabbed, just had surgery, could have died for something he didn't need to be a part of. He lets out some noise, some nearly hysterical sound that's somewhere between a laugh and a sob, but is mostly the last shreds of his composure abandoning him. The world starts to spin as the churning panic in his chest amplifies and he scrambles to sit in the chair beside Brody's bed before gravity puts him on the floor.

"You're not okay," Brody answers for himself, which is good, because Ian's too busy trying to remember how to breathe. A hand reaches out, lands on his shoulder. "Ian."

"Shit," Ian manages to force the word out.

Brody's grip on his shoulder tightens. The other boy pulls him forward and Ian goes easily, let's Brody pull him into a hug. It's something they both need, apparently, because he can feel Brody holding on to him just as desperately as he ends up clinging to Brody.

"I thought I was gonna lose you for a little while there," Ian admits, thinking of their arrival at the hospital, when it was apparent just how very much blood Brody had lost. He holds on a little tighter when the memory hits, though he's careful of Brody's injuries.

"I know the feeling," Brody adds, and Ian doesn't think he's imagining the way the other boy's voice shakes. "I… I heard the nurse talking to the cop when I first woke up. They said the horseman got away and I thought…"

Ian gets it. Chances are, if the horseman got away, it would have been because Ian hadn't managed to stop it. "I'm fine," he promises. "You're fine. We're both fine," he breathes a little easier. "We did it." A laugh, then, awed and exhausted, "We really did it."

When Ian's sure the panic attack won't bowl him over again, he pulls away. Doesn't go far, Brody's hand is still anchored on his shoulder and he rather likes it that way. He knows it won't be long before the nurses come to kick him out for the night. There are things they need to talk about – he needs to fill Brody in on the gaps in his recollection of the fight in the hollow, of how Officer Richardson got involved, and the further details of the fake story, along with his father's hopefully empty threats, but somehow the thing he ends up blurting out is, "I… I like you, too," which is just as much a surprise to Ian as it is to Brody. It had not been what he'd planned to say. He honestly doesn't know what he'd planned to say, but he's sure it definitely wasn't that.

Brody blinks up at him, rightfully stunned by this abrupt declaration. "You what?"

"I like you," he says again, the words aren't as hard to say this time.

Brody tenses, Ian can feel it as the hand falls away from his shoulder. "If you're just saying this out of some weird sense of pity or duty or whatever, you can-"

"No," Ian interrupts what he was sure was an invitation to fuck right off. "No, it's not like that. I just… with everything, the horseman, I didn't…" He's not explaining this well. "Look, if you'd given me ten more seconds to react when my dad said what he said, this day would have gone very differently," he tries, but even that doesn't sound quite right. It's not Brody's fault that Ian's dad is a jackass, "You're not the only one." He can see the dawning realization on Brody's face, then. "The way things have been lately, the two of us… You're the only reason I stayed sane for most of this. I like having you around. I like you. And if you want to give this a try, I'm totally on board with that idea."

Brody still doesn't look entirely convinced that this isn't just some trick, "Seriously?"

"We took down a literal demon," Ian reminds the other boy, "and somehow me having feelings for you, that's the most unbelievable thing you've heard tonight?"

Put like that, Brody seems to have an easier time accepting the idea. "Come here," Brody says, with a fond roll of his eyes. He pulls Ian in close again, and like before Ian goes willingly. There's a quick few seconds of hesitation before they both seem to come to the decision that they're really doing this. Then, a kiss, just a brief one, given the injuries and the exhaustion and the risk of getting caught.

When the kiss ends, Ian reaches out, unsure if the move will be accepted or rejected, but Brody catches his hand and holds tight. Instantly, Ian feels better about everything. And, without the ever-looming threat of the horseman weighing him down, he lets himself relax for the first time since… last Halloween. It's over now, he's sure, and Brody's going to be okay. They're going to be okay. They did it, the two of them, together.

With any luck, that's how it's going to be from now on.


End file.
